The number one question of all time......
Does it hurt???
Sometimes I like to be a bit of a smart ass and tell you....Well if I poke you a couple of thousand times with a sharp object it is bound to hurt some....*Laugh Out Loud*
But seriously...It is NOT an excruciating pain...really only uncomfortable. Most girls tell me it feels like an Epilady Shaver....I know this... I will never use one if it does not leave a mark and feels like a tattoo machine...*chuckles*
The tattoo needle doesn't penitrate the dermis below the third layer of skin. I have had cat scratches that hurt worse than a tattoo. It is really a state of mind if you go in with the thought OH MY GOD THIS IS GOING TO HURT......and you are scared to death from the begining it will probably be worse than it has to be. If you are crawling out of your skin and all jumpy to begin with you and your tattooist are not going to have a very good time. Here's the secret.....RELAX!!! Go in with a positive attitude it is not really painful at the worst it is uncomfortable and if you relax totally it's practically nothing.
This question I get asked almost everyday and have for twenty years....
Did that tattoo on your neck hurt really badly?
No the most easy to take tattoo was on my neck....Though I do NOT recommend tattoos on the neck. If you are young and you want a tattoo on your neck I will not give you one. Do you know why? I have had to live like this for twenty years and I know the social ramifications of my actions. I have been treated like a leper and a criminal just because of this tattooed neck of mine. I thought I would never give a crap about what people thought but after about twenty five I did....I wanted to go out to nice restaurants and social functions to meet high profile people and there was no way I could hide these....SO THINK before you ink.....Things change so do attitudes and situations don't pigeon hole yourself.
On the other hand.....my hands,feet and certain areas on my back were what I could call painful...And last but not least my stomach was a spiritual experience I talked to The God and Goddess when it was done....*Grin*
So I recommend the first tattoo you should avoid the places I have stated hands and feet are the worst not only does it hurt as bad as a tattoo can....The hands and feet shed two hundred and fifty times faster than any part of the human body and the ink looks bad after as little as three months....the ink cannot sink fast enough to compensate for the skin loss...What it ends up looking like is a dirty spot on your hand. Why bother. Here's a little theory for you... the reason tattoos stay in is because the ink is more dense than the dermis... it sinks down in. And the older that tattoo is the deeper it has sunk. My tattoos are actually in my muscle tissue now.
So if I don't like this tattoo can't I just have it removed???
Not to knock anyone as in surgeons but there is NO WAY really to restore the skin to the original pristine condition. The best thing you can do for yourself is pick a spot you can live with that you can hide when you want to or show when you want to. You also want to pick a design that you can live with Forever....Because as I have said before the only two conditions in life that are permanent are tattoos and death.
I want a hummingbird with alot of details and color but I want it as but as a dime can I have that???
Skin is not paper and a tattooist is not a laser printer....skin changes through the years and pigments spread slightly....That kind of tattoo might look good for a very short time but after that I tell you it would be bad news, it would end up looking like a blob as big as a dime. Be suspicious of ANYONE that tells you they can do this....Or is eager to put tats in the places I have told you were unwise they want your money. I really care what you are going to look like in twenty years others with less scruples or experience are not as concerned.
Can I get AIDS from a tattoo???
It is very unlikely you could get AIDS from a tattoo...In fact there has not been one case of AIDS contracted from a proffessionally done tattoo ever....There supposedly two cases from tattooing in prison though I don't believe the tattooing was probably to blame....*chuckles* I think maybe there were underlying factors we didn't know about...
Let me tell you why it would be almost impossible to get AIDS from a tat...The AIDS virus cannot live in the air more than 10 minutes or so...There is nothing that is closed about a tattoo tube and the needles are not hollow....Therefore there is no place for the virus to hide...On the other hand You CAN contract hepatitis which is just as deadly as AIDS and is discussed in "What you don't know about tattoos can kill you"
Do colors fade in time???
Most colors will change in time...Depending on your skin type you are looking at your tattoo through layers of skin...So if you are skin is olive or darker it will obscure the color more...The color is still there but you cannot see it as well...On the other hand if you fry your tattoo in the sun or in a tanning bed it will bleach it pretty badly...Just like your couch or the curtains or the construction paper that was put on the backboard in gradeschool....Remember how that used to happen??? Best advice I can give you is use a sunscreen a fifty or as high as you can get it. Protect your investment.
Now some questions answered....
Gary Mark wrote:
Excellent!! *L*...now I'm eyeing my sad faded lines wishin I had seen
this info years ago..tell me Raven..can the depth of the needle into the
skin affect the line?..does that make it blob earlier?..I have one Tat
in particular on my shoulder where the top line across the shoulder
blade hit bone..(Tattooist was drunk...come to think of it we both
were)...It was quite swollen fer about five days after
..........
The Raven Speaks....
YUPPERS Swells are common in tats....here's the deal with that....Ink is made out of mostly all organic materials....but there are trace elements of metallic substances: Red has Mercury, Blue= Chromium: Yellow = Cadium: White = Titanium.....Every once in awhile the skin figures out that it has a foreign substance in it and goes to all the little army men that guard the system...."Hey boys everybody push here...We gotta get this crap outta here." *LOL*....Also contributing to this is the fact that the inked parts of ya burn first because they are darker....(Just like the black t-shirt in the sun is hotter than a light colored one)...... which causes an irritation, Which once again attracts the soldiers to the area and once again...."PUSH BOYS!!!!!".....My tats swell less the older I am in fact some have given up all together....it's nothing to be alarmed about and it will stop after about 20 years....*LOL*.....There's that answer....
Now for #2.......The lines of your tat sound dug in.....YOUCH!!!!As a matter of fact the deeper the artist tags ya the quicker it fades....here's why....The needle instead of making a nice clean cut that heals relatively painlessly......Plows through the dermis.....just like if you are cut by a dull knife it scars worse....The result is a blurry assed line.....Also a dull needle actually pulls out some tissue while plowing away and it damages the skin badly so the result is the dermis is too damaged to hold the ink....Yucko.....(Hamburger meat)!!!!Now if the artists leans on ya really hard with a liner....this person will actually split the skin all the way through the layers.....which makes for a FAT blurry line....... OUWY OUWY OUWY......*G*
Then the last thing I gotta tell you and everyone else.....To late now but for future references....A kid came to me a few weeks ago and wanted ME....to get high with him before I tatted him....Nevermind I quit that crazy crap years ago....but here's what I told him.....
There are two people in this world you absolutely, postively, do not want to get high or drunk with before they work on ya.....your tattooist and your surgeon!!!!"
And By the Way I was covering up a nasty piece of work on him that was done by a wasted artist if you can call him that.....GO FIGURE!!!
Thanks for the fantastic questions buddy your letter will be going on my page.....*G*
Blessed Be,
The Raven and Moondnce
Got a question for me???Send it to me and if it is appropriate I will post it here and answer in a public forum...Thanks again for visiting...
There are ALOT more questions I plan to answer here so check in periodically...until that time...if there is something important e-mail me.....
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